


Misplaced Antagonism

by WittyWallflower



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship, Gen, Interspecies tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:43:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21600943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WittyWallflower/pseuds/WittyWallflower
Summary: set in the very early days - Hoshi confronts T'pol about the Vulcan's attitude towards the communications officer on the bridge
Relationships: Hoshi Sato & T'Pol
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Misplaced Antagonism

Sub-commander T'pol had not been aboard the Enterprise long but it didn't take a lengthy familiarity to know where to find the Vulcan when she was not on duty. She visited the mess hall only by necessity, sickbay only by doctor's order. She wasn't exactly warm and friendly with the crew so she definitely wasn't out socializing. Which is why Ensign Sato was ringing the door chime to T'pol's personal quarters one evening. 

"Enter." T'pol turned to the door to address her visitor.

Hoshi entered, carrying the data padd she came to deliver to the sub-commander.

"The translations you asked for, sir." Plenty of female officers were happy to drop the regulation 'sir' for ranking officers, but somehow Hoshi suspected T'pol cared more for official protocol than she did about being misgendered. 

Hoshi tucked her hands behind her back and remained standing as T'pol reviewed the text. The Vulcan did not speak, did not invite the Ensign to sit or send her away so T'pol could read in peace. No, she left Hoshi hanging, waiting like a schoolkid in front of the principal while he looked over her permanent record.

However carefully she read though, T'pol could evidently find no fault to address. She set down the data padd and gave the linguist a nod of dismissal.

"The information appears to be adequate," she said.

Hoshi bristled. It was more than adequate! There was no one on Earth who had a better talent for languages and T'pol certainly wasn't going to find anyone to do a better job of it here on Enterprise. The Vulcan had been working her last nerve on the bridge lately and Hoshi was really wishing her self control equaled the imperturbable first officer. She tried not to fume too visibly. 

Sensing Ensign Sato's hesitation, T'pol raised an eyebrow in query?

"Is there anything further, Ensign?"

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" Hoshi bit her lip, hoping she wasn't headed straight for a reprimand. She was mildly surprised when T'pol assented.

Hoshi decided to be straightforward. Blunt was what the Vulcan did best, maybe she would respond better to it than to human courtesy or prevarication. Couching things in less offensive terms wouldn't come natural to a species that was found offense to be an emotional reaction. And Hoshi was making a conscious effort to be more confident in herself as an officer. The bridge of the Enterprise was no place for a insecure little girl. She had to learn to stand up for herself. 

"Do you have some kind of problem with me, sub-commander?" Hoshi added the rank to soften the question. No need for an insubordination charge.

Stone blankness on T'pol's elfin face. One eyebrow raised in expectation of an explanation.

"Your behavior towards me on the bridge sometimes... I know Vulcans don't do 'hostile', so I can't figure out if you are challenging me or if you really think I am that bad at my job," Hoshi said.

Both eyebrows lifted this time. T'pol found herself drawn into yet another emotional confrontation, when she had not been aboard the ship for very long. She was mildly surprised it was Ensign Sato instigating the situation this time. Despite swearing at the Vulcan on the bridge, she had assumed the ensign would not confront a superior officer in such a manner. 

"Your credentials appear to be sufficient and Captain Archer's spoke enthusiastically about your linguistic talents. So far I have no had cause to disagree." T'pol stated flatly. 

It was clipped, abrupt, and that 'so far' could sound like a veiled insult but Hoshi wasn't so sure. Unconsciously she cocked her head slightly in the gesture she always used when really _listening_. Not just to the words but what was left unsaid as well.

"So... you _are_ challenging me then?"

T'pol hadn't denied it. The woman was thorough to a fault so she certainly hadn't missed the accusation. Wouldn't it have be logical to deny it if it wasn't true? But Hoshi couldnt think of logical reason for the Vulcan to be needling her in the first place.

T'pol collected herself, considered how to respond.

"I would not use the word 'challenging'," she said.

That was a vague non-answer to Hoshi's thinking. For a moment she was angry. She didn't want to live under the spectre of a first officer with a grudge against her. Do Vulcans even hold grudges? It didn't seem likely, so there had to be something else going on. Something that was preventing her from understanding this woman despite the fact that she spoke perfect English. Sato sighed and tried a different tack.

"Well, feel free to throw some different words at me." Hoshi seated herself on a padded bench and faced the other woman, then spoke in flawless Vulcan. " _I know a million words, though i doubt you will need that many._ "

Perhaps it was reckless, not that T'pol would admit to such an adjective when applied to herself. The ensign had been blunt but not overtly emotional. This sort of interaction T'pol could understand so she committed herself to it. No doubt some would frown on her being so frank about the nature of her very private people but Vulcans also valued honesty.

It would also be an unfortunate irony if the situation were allowed to progress and she end up with serious difficulties communicating effectively with the ships communication officer.

"First, it would be useful to correct a common misconception humans have about Vulcans. It is believed we do not feel any emotions. In truth, we do feel emotions, very volatile ones. It is only through rigid suppression of these emotions that our species has achieved peace and advancement. We require a firm control in order to function adequately in our lives... if we felt no emotions, there would nothing to control."

"Yes, I know." Hoshi said simply.

"You do?"

The more she watched the sub-commander react to things, the more Hoshi was learning to read the different shades of blank stoicism. This one looked a bit like surprise.

"I've read Vulcan poetry, and all 348 verses of Falor's Journey. A species without emotion wouldn't express themselves through literature." Hoshi reported. 

Yup, that was definitely surprise.

Hoshi shrugged, explaining, "I had a Vulcan tutor once. His lesson material was really dry and boring, so to practice the language I went looking for literally anything else I could find."

T'pol was resolved now. Ensign Sato's dedication to understanding languages was admirable and suggested a similar dedication towards understanding people. It might be useful to have one human aboard this ship that understood her, to some extent. Who didn't hold her Vulcan nature against her. Whenever measured by human standards T'pol always came up short in one aspect or another. She was aready considered barely satisfactory as a Vulcan at it was. But she avoided both of those thoughts and any emotional reaction they might prompt within her. 

"It requires a great deal of control." T'pol explained. "Vulcans cultivate the impression that such control is easy, requiring only sufficient discipline. But in truth it takes continual and conscious effort to suppress the emotional responses."

At least it did for her. Not for the first time in her life. T'pol wondered if there was a fundamental difference to her. Did all Vulcans struggle as much as she did and no one ever talked about it? Did everyone find it exhausting to maintain the impassive facade? Or was she an aberration?

"The effort can leave us sensitive to overt emotional displays from those around us. They can be most uncomfortable to witness. This would not be a problem on a Vulcan ship but humans are decidedly less restrained. The emotional influx from your species is constant, and very volatile in times of stress. Vulcan officials prefer to limit time on human ships and planets to brief visits for this reason."

Hoshi had always figured Vulcans just thought the emotional displays of others were vulgar and unsavory, she hadn't realized they were actually affected by them. An irreverent part of her mind compared it to dealing with a migraine when everyone around you seemed to be shouting. It put some of T'pol's behavior into perspective. Explained a lot actually, but Hoshi didn't say so. Vulcans being such private people, she doubted T'pol would appreciate hearing an outsider's opinion on the matter. Or a junior officer she barely knew claiming to understand her. 

"I just figured that was because you all thought we smelled bad." Hoshi dared a joke instead.

"Only Vulcan women have especially acute olfactory capabilities. But I admit, there have been situations where that was the case." There was a beat while T'pol realized her words could give offense to the human. "I have not encountered significant difficulties with _most_ individuals aboard Enterprise, however." 

"Wait, you were originally only assigned to be on Enterprise for the one mission." Hoshi remembered.

"Indeed." T'pol said, leaving a wealth unspoken.

This was looking to be a long-term assignment for her now, a first for any Vulcan: an indefinite posting on a Starfleet ship filled to the brim with humans. T'pol had had no chance to prepare for such a significant change to her lifestyle. Or any choice in the matter. Much like Starfleet officers, Vulcan officers went where they were ordered to go. Unlike Starfleet officers though, they would not consider resigning their commission unless there was a lot of very strong logic for doing so. While a human resigning from a posting they didn't want for personal reasons wasn't super common, it was at least understandable, especially to other humans. But how would a loyal, obedient Vulcan officer explain to their family and friends that they had chosen to abandon their duties? Did Vulcans even have friends, as humans understood the concept of friendship?

Huh. This was turning out to be a very enlightening conversation for Hoshi. But not everything was clear.

"Why me specifically?" Hoshi pressed her original point. "I guess i get it if you feel you have to be on guard against _all_ humans, but you didn't call out anyone else in front of the entire bridge crew." Nor had Hoshi sworn at any of her human crewmates, but then they hadn't given her reason to want t.

"Human females are known to be more emotionally reactive than males." It sounded inadequate, even to T'pol's ears.

Whatever culture database the Vulcan was using was wildly out of date. Hoshi was surprised a logical race would buy into gender stereotypes like that. She couldn't really respond the way she would like, given that it would be sufficiently 'emotionally reactive' to confirm T'pol's prejudice. She swallowed her ire in a move that would probably meet with the Vulcan's approval had she known. Firmly Hoshi reminded herself that space was vast and distant cultures were not responsible if they didn't understand how her culture worked. If she was sent to live on a Vulcan ship with next to no warning, she'd probably make ever faux pas in the book. Getting pissed off certainly wasn't going to make the situation any smoother. 

"Women may demonstrate it in different ways, but i think you will find us no more or less emotional then the men." Hoshi explained evenly. The sub-commander was an intelligent women. She would get it. 

Since T'pol had witnessed one or two passionate rants from Archer already, and had witnessed Hoshi's admirable restraint in the current conversation, she nodded her acceptance of the ensign's assertion. The evidence would seem to support it. 

Hoshi felt like she was actually on even ground with the sub-commander, for once. Again she reminded herself she couldn't judge the alien woman's behavior by human standards. T'pol had sensed a threat to her control and sought to defend herself against it. Why that led to her being rude to Hoshi was harder to translate but Ensign Sato caught the gist. Hoshi knew she wasn't the most reserved person, even for a human. She was no Lt Reed with his British aloofness. But she got the feeling that T'pol wouldn't be heckling her on the bridge anymore, which was what Hoshi had set out to achieve in the first place. 

Along the way, she may have accidentally started the formation of a rather strange friendship.

"So..." Hoshi changed the subject, satisfied the two women were at least in the same book now if not quite on the same page yet. She leaned forward conspiratorially. Vulcans probably didn't find gossip logical but T'pol may as well get used to it. There was no escaping it on a ship like this. "Who _is_ the stinkiest one aboard?"

"Porthos." T'pol's answer was immediate.

Hoshi giggled.


End file.
